We're Meant to be Thoughtful on Cloudy Days

It was far from a perfect picture taking morning.

Dark, cloudy—it may have been the first time I ever drove around the Wetlands with my headlights on.

But the bad lighting made me pay careful attention to everything.

And it meant stopping to take a picture of an excavator that has been sitting in the same spot now for days.  I wonder if the owners understand how fast things grow in Florida.  A little bit of rain and that excavator will be buried quickly in tall grass and shrubs.

Everywhere around the Wetlands there is construction.  The water treatment plant seems to be constantly building and just on the other side of that, there are dozens of the same boring-one-size-fits-all-houses multiplying at alarming rates.

Now that I think about it, I wonder what grows faster in Florida, the plant life or new construction?

And when the two invariably collide who will win?

New construction for now?

Or, the earth in the end, long after we are gone?

I try not to get sad at the pockets of wilderness, the islands of life, rapidly shrinking around here.

I try not to worry about the displaced creatures, about the scrub jays who aren’t capable of finding new homes, who simply die when their homes are lost.

But I do take a second to look at my own footprint and wonder just how much the earth can take.